Whale season already in full swing
Our first tour for the 2021/22 season was scheduled for the 18th September, as this is usually the time when the first whales are slowly starting to arrive in Tassie waters. This year however, they seemed to be on the move much earlier. We received reports of Whale sightings all through September and people were keen to get out and go on a search. Of course we couldn’t say no and we were able to put our vessel back in the water earlier than planned.
We are already seeing Humpback Whales on most of our trips. It looks very promising that this year is going to be another epic season, similar to last year. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that the whales choose to gather again in high numbers to feed along the coastline of the Tasman Peninsula, like they did in October and November 2020.
First flukes for the Tasmanian Fluke Project
A fair few of the first Humpback Whales we’ve sighted have been quite active and showed their beautiful flukes. The flukes are like our fingerprints individual to every Humpback Whale. We take photos of the Whales flukes and together with Dr. Maddie Brasier from the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) we upload them to an online database called ‘Happywhale’. The online program helps us log the sightings and track the whales movements. Since we put our boat back in the water last week, we’ve already re-sighted one of the Whales that we saw in November 2020. Hopefully there are many more re-sights (or matches as we call them) to come!
You can read more about the Tasmanian Fluke Project on this blog post. We’d love as many people as possible to become involved as citizen scientists. 🙂
To check where, when and how many Humpback Whales have been logged in Tasmania since we started the project, click on this link and type in ‘Tasmania’ in the search bar. Keep in mind that not all whales fluke or we may not get a sharp photo of the tail, so the number of whales sighted in total is much higher than the number of whales logged.
Fantastic sighting of rare Whale species last week
Beside the Humpback Whales, two rare Whale Species to Tasmanian coastal waters have been reported this week as well by local Tim Cunningham. Early one morning, he spotted a large group of 10-15 Sei Whales and some Minke Whales towards lunch time. The Sei Whale is the third largest rorqual after the Blue and the Fin Whale. So the sheer size of the animal is very impressive. The Sei Whale is also one of the fastest Whales, reaching speeds of up to 30 miles per hour.
What a special encounter! The last time we saw Sei Whales here on this coastline was in 2018!
We hope you enjoyed reading about our research projects and the amazing animals we’re privileged to encounter here on the Southeast coast of Tasmania. If you would like to join us, head over to our booking system and reserve your seats online. Tours depart daily at 9am and 2.30pm, depending on the weather conditions.
We look forward to sharing it with you! 🙂